


Every time you get a song stuck in your head

by cian1675



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Jackson-Centric, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates, background Markjin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 10:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7218343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cian1675/pseuds/cian1675
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time you get a song stuck in your head, it’s because your soulmate is singing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every time you get a song stuck in your head

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is a prompt from [tumblr](http://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/145485816745/every-time-you-get-a-song-stuck-in-your-head-its)

* * *

When Jackson had discovered the term “earworm” in middle school, the first thing he felt was relief that there was a name for the songs stuck in his head, followed by puzzlement.

 **Earworm** /ˈɪəwəːm/  
_A catchy song or tune that runs continually through someone's mind._

  
Catchy? The random songs he heard in his mind are any but. If asked to sing or hum whatever earworm was in his head, Jackson could hardly pin down a tune, even if moments before, he had been tormented by the incessant repetition of what is probably the chorus of a song.

Popular belief was that earworms were usually songs you had previously heard, and could be triggered by words or hearing the song just prior (even in the background, since the subconscious could pick up on it). This had frustrated Jackson, whose earworms were always songs he had never heard of, in a language he didn’t understand, and to top it off, were impossible to tune out.

Supposedly, you couldn’t change the volume of the voice inside your head, even if you could vary the tone and pitch to make it seem like it is louder or softer. But Jackson was pretty sure that his earworms were on a different volume than his normal voice in his head. He was pretty sure that it was turned up at the maximum volume, intended to wreck his concentration whenever he was at a critical moment like his fencing matches.

Jackson didn’t understand why, but he tried his best to handle it as best as he could.

 

 

The first person he told about his extremely loud earworms is Mark. Jackson hadn’t intended to, but when he fumbled yet again during dance practice, and his fellow trainee got frustrated, he thought Mark should at least get some sort of explanation. He was surprised when Mark confesses that he, too, gets annoying earworms that often happened when he tried to sing, which was why he always had trouble staying in tune.

Jackson could immediately sympathize, which was why he ended up telling Mark more about his earworms and how he had realize his earworms were almost always some Korean song, which he had only noticed after learning Korean. He had expected to get a laugh out of the other boy, but Mark had been surprised, like a realization had hit him.

Later, lying under the blankets at night, Jackson had asked Mark why he had been so surprised, and Mark had said that it was because Jackson’s words jolted him to realize that his earworms were mostly in Korean too. Jackson didn’t understand why Mark had took so long to realize that when they both started taking Korean lessons a year ago, but Mark had only laughed it off saying that his earworms were rather mumbled and soft.

Jackson didn’t pry for more.

 

 

8 months before debut, Jackson noticed his earworms getting more frequent. He had tried so hard to handle his extremely frustrating earworms past his fencing career, to his trainee days and he was determined not to let it interfere with his dream of finally debuting. That turned out to be more difficult said than done, and when the earworms finally relented to the usual frequency (which was still a pain, but much more manageable), Jackson was really, really glad.

His happiness was short-lived because about a month after that (which was roughly after the line-up for GOT7 had been announced, with a new trainee to join as their main vocal), the earworms got impossibly worse than they’ve ever had. It haunted Jackson to the point that there is hardly any rest between each earworm, and funnily enough, became so constant that Jackson noticed the absence of his earworms instead.

Though, it was not like he had a lot of time or energy to pay attention to that with increasing preparations for debut.

 

 

There was a day after their debut, when GOT7 was resting, free from obligations for the day that Jackson remembers vividly. He hadn’t seen the relevance at that time, and had mostly filed it away as the time he had talked to Mark about earworms for the second time.

Mark was in the kitchen, getting teabags, and Jackson had followed to make sure he used the organic ones. Outside in the living room, Jinyoung was reading while the other four members were playing games with household chore duties for penalty. Jinyoung had been singing softly, absently while he read, when Mark had said, suddenly, “Jackson, what’s the name of the song that Jinyoung’s singing?”

Jackson didn’t know, and he asked Mark why he had suddenly asked anyway. Mark merely shrugged and said, it sounded the same as the earworm that he has, and he was curious. To satisfy Mark’s, and now his curiosity, Jackson offered to ask Jinyoung directly, but Mark had said it wasn’t important. Still, Jackson asked Jinyoung when Mark wasn’t looking, and he slipped beside Mark afterwards to tell him the song name.

Later that night, Mark had played that song on speaker in the room they shared, softly humming it under his breath but messing up the tune. Jackson had accidentally laughed when it happened too many times, and Mark huffed a “Don’t laugh, I’ve never even heard this song before so don’t judge me for not getting the tune right” around the same time Jinyoung shouted from his room across the hall, “Youngjae, stop singing! I want to sleep!”

Next door, Youngjae promptly stopped singing, and Jackson remembered thinking, _peace and quiet for once_. He can’t be sure, but he supposes that was also one of the rare moments when he didn’t have an earworm stuck in his head as well.

 

 

One morning, Jackson had woken up to clanging in the kitchen. He didn’t want to get out of bed to investigate because usually, mornings were the only constant period when he did not get earworms, and as much as he had gotten better than ignoring them, he still liked to enjoy the peace in his head as much as he could. Eventually though, he got out of bed when it seemed like whoever was in the kitchen didn’t seem to be done anytime soon, and Jackson should probably tell whoever it was to tone it down when most of the members were probably asleep.

In the kitchen, Youngjae was holding out jars under the dim kitchen light to read labels, a cup and thermal flask on the countertop beside him. To say Jackson was surprised at the identity of the early morning appearance being Youngjae, who needed at least three alarms and vigorous shaking to wake up is an understatement.

When Jackson asked what the other boy was doing so early in the morning, he only received a smile, and a voicelessly mouthed “sore throat” and “honey”. To have Youngjae not speaking a word means the sore throat was probably bad enough to stress their group’s main vocal out, and Jackson joined Youngjae in his search for honey.

Later, when the leader found out, Youngjae was sent to see the doctor and ordered to rest his voice, while the rest continued their schedules. That day, Jackson didn’t do very well in the shows, a strange feeling niggling in the back of his mind. He only realized as he was about to turn in for the night that the strangeness he felt the whole day was from not having a single earworm the entire day.

 

 

There was an odd sense of déjà vu when Jackson heard one of the songs for GOT7’s new album. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it sounded like one of the earworms he had had for the last few months. He mostly remembered how the word ‘rewind’ repeated a lot in the song. When he found out that Youngjae wrote the song, he wondered if maybe he might have just overheard bits of it from his bedroom when Youngjae had worked on it from the room he shares with Jaebum next door.

Jackson had later casually asked Jaebum whether Youngjae had worked on “Rewind” while in the room, and got a puzzled no in return. “He’s been working in the studio, actually,” was Jaebum’s remark, and Jackson crossed out the possibility of overhearing the song that sounds suspiciously like his earworm from next door.

Eventually, after the day’s filming and schedules, Jackson chalked the déjà vu up to whatever tricks the brain plays to letting him think that he had heard the new song Youngjae wrote before, let alone as an earworm long before Youngjae even announced the song to them. Because the latter was way too farfetched, and he didn’t even want to venture into why he would hear _Youngjae’s songs_ in his head, of all things.

The brain was after all, very good at putting things together, to cobble up explanations for everything.

 

 

Eventually, Jackson had gotten curious enough to wonder if maybe he should at least try to figure out that déjà vu moment, even if he didn’t know where to start. He was waiting for his turn to record the songs for the upcoming album, the song he was about to record stuck in his head – a case of his earworm being actually useful for once. The earworm played in his mind as he ran through his rap, and he looked up to see Youngjae walking out of the recording booth to indicate that it was Jackson’s turn.

In the booth however, the earworm had switched to an English song, Jackson holding his lyrics sheet tight in his hand as he tried not to be distracted by the slow tempo of the earworm in his head. He finally managed to get a good enough recording, stumbling out of the booth to hear Mark and Youngjae singing the same English song that was still stuck in his head.

“Ugh, stop singing, my head hurts,” Jackson grumbled, and was lucky to have both the external sounds and his inner voice stop singing. He walked to the couch behind the sound engineer and flopped down to sleep.

The moment of quietness was broken quickly with Youngjae asking if he was feeling alright, and how badly his head hurts. Jackson didn’t want to worry anyone and honestly the earworm had stopped so he said he was just a bit tired, which Youngjae accepted. But something must have shown on his face because Youngjae disappeared to bring a sandwich and some water for Jackson.

They weren’t allowed to eat in the recording studio, so Youngjae had accompanied Jackson to a bench in the corridor to eat. Jackson decided then to take the chance to ask whether Youngjae whether he had played “Rewind” anywhere in the dorm or when Jackson was around.

“Like, once or twice?” was the answer Youngjae gave.

“Oh,” Jackson wasn’t sure what else to ask. It wasn’t like he could confirm or disprove déjà vu and he wasn’t sure what he was attempting, but he gave a last shot, “Before or after you let the whole group listen to it?”

“After.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, definitely. I didn’t want to let anyone hear it until it was done.”

That was the moment when Jackson had realized that there was no way he could have heard Youngjae’s song before, unless…

Unless his brain was secretly a genius that wrote songs without him even trying? Unless he imagined the whole thing? Unless it really was just a misplaced déjà vu combined with his annoyance at his earworms?

Even in his own head, Jackson hadn’t wanted to entertain possibilities (more like absurdities) that he could hear other people’s songs in his head. It wasn’t possible, right?

 

 

Searching up auditory hallucinations had done nothing but worry Jackson, and he had started thinking maybe something was wrong with him. He worried that he might have an illness, but even if he were to accept the case that he did, he couldn’t think of a good explanation for why he could have heard “Rewind” in his head without having heard the song prior. His brain might have cracked and gone nuts, because right then, a lullaby started in his head, another earworm, and the combination of that with his frazzled nerves might have driven him to hunt for beer in the kitchen if he didn’t hear Jaebum’s laughter from next door, followed by “Stop singing me a lullabye, Youngjae-ah. I’m not a child and I’m not sleepy.”

To be honest, Jackson wasn’t sure what compelled him to get to the room that Youngjae shared with Jaebum and just open the door without knocking, but he was, and still is, kind of glad he had done that, because that was when Jackson recognized. Recognized that Youngjae was singing the same song, with the same lyrics at the same timing as his earworm when his hand was on the doorknob, and both Youngjae’s singing and his earworm stopped immediately when Jackson had thrown the door open, surprising both Jaebum and Youngjae.

Facing two no-longer surprised and more questioning expressions, Jackson let the realization sink in.

He could hear Youngjae’s singing in his head.

 

 

He had been so stunned when the realization hit him that he had ended up spilling his crazy newfound fact to Jaebum and Youngjae both, the former looking at him like Jackson’s got a screw loose, and the latter with a slowly comprehending expression. He hadn’t been sure whose reaction scared him more.

Jackson was still worried at that moment that he might be crazy, but Youngjae had placed a hand on his arm, leading them to the living room, before asking Jackson to explain what he had meant. Jackson hadn’t been sure what was useful and what wasn’t, so he gave a brief description of everything, how he realized he always had earworms that were in Korean before he understood the language, how he heard “Rewind” constantly in his head a few months before Youngjae let them listen to the song (Youngjae nodded, seeming to remember the conversation he had with Jackson earlier), and how, most damningly, he had heard Youngjae sing the lullaby to the same timing as the voice in his head, and how both had stopped when he opened the door.

That Youngjae was nodding as Jackson recounted all that was somewhat reassuring, but he was nervous that the other hadn’t said anything thus far. “So, what do you think of this”, Jackson had asked.

“We can just test it now. I sing, and you tell me if you hear it in your head.”

Jackson had been wondering if he had gone mad, and he wasn’t sure what it meant that Youngjae had just listened without too many questions, “How are you accepting this so calmly?”

“Hyung, I’m not accepting anything, but I can see that you are worried and we can test your, uh, theory, realisation, thing, out.”

“How do I know it’s not just me hearing you sing and thinking that I heard you in my head somehow?”

“I can sing from my room with Jaebum as witness, and you sit here. Then he can come out to ask you what song I was singing, and if you get it right…”

That was what they had done, and after the fifth or sixth time Jaebum had entered the living room, their leader had announced that whatever this madness was, he was done, because Jackson got the song right the first four or five times, and he didn’t see a point in continuing.

Madness, because that was what it was. Doing the same thing again and again, hoping for a different result. Madness, because Jackson shouldn’t be able to hear anyone but himself in his head, and somehow he hears Youngjae’s singing, and none of this made any sense.

When Youngjae returned to the living room after Jaebum went back to sleep, Jackson had not expected that the first thing he said to be, “You know, maybe I wasn’t surprised because I used to have so many Cantonese songs that I’ve never heard before stuck in my head.”

Jackson hadn’t known what to say to that so he had just lightly patted Youngjae’s shoulder, the two of them slumped on the couch in silence.

 

***  
Even now, long after the other members found out, sparking Mark and Jinyoung to realise that they too can hear each other singing in their heads, Jackson’s not sure how this whole thing works.

Why does he only hear Youngjae and no one else? Why does he hear Youngjae singing in his head, and never his talking voice or thoughts? Why does Youngjae also hear Jackson’s singing in his head? And what does this all mean?

Jackson doesn’t know.

Though he supposes, lips curving up as he jabs Youngjae who’s humming beside him, one good thing that came out of this is that he can finally get his earworms to stop by shutting Youngjae up, and turn the inner voice down to a comfortable volume by nudging Youngjae whenever he sings too loudly.

Though, he still can’t figure out how to make Youngjae stop hitting him or laughing so loudly, which he is doing _right now. But_ , Jackson thinks, body twisting to avoid Youngjae’s hits, _this isn’t so bad_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I just wanted to write something after reading the writing prompt because there's so many interesting possibilities and I have so many questions about soulmate fics. That earworms might be your soulmate singing made me wonder what would happen to Youngjae's soulmate since he can be so loud. That Jackson ends up as the main character is probably fuelled by Got2day #6 that I watched yesterday :)
> 
> In the end, I went for one where the characters aren't aware of what they experience as being the result of them being soulmates, but I hope you still enjoyed the fic :)


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